Buddy Martin Blog: Billy’s Army, 256 Strong. Dressed In Orange & Blue, With Green From The Heavener.

"There are more support staff in that picture than cabana boys at a Kardashian Spa & Fat Farm – by my count, more than one coach/attendant per player." (UAA Photo)

By BUDDY MARTIN

GatorBaitMedia.com Editor

Before we declare it an Era, let’s see if they can make a first down and keep from getting boat-raced. Let’s wait on the anointment as William The Conquer's Empire until we see proof whether Billy’s Army can don its new uniforms properly and line up correctly.

It is, indeed, a New Day in Florida football -- just not yet a New Era. Frankly, though, it does have the markings of something special. And they do look really impressive in that team photo, don’t they? All 256 of them.

There are more support staff in that picture than cabana boys at a Kardashian Spa & Fat Farm – by my count, more than one coach/attendant per player. Of course that includes players, coaches and support personnel. But who’s counting?

Besides, with all those massive dollars flowing from the new TV deals about to be signed, what’s a few million between friends?

So let’s suspend the accusations of wretched excess in college football these days, even if everything looks, feels and smells like money. Which was the waft I detected this week on a media tour of the new Heavener.

“Is that a ‘new car’ smell?” I asked a colleague after 15 minutes on the tour. “No,” he said. “That’s the smell of money.”

Thirty of us media toured the Heavener with Chip Howard. "impressive." (Buddy Martin Photo)

Not just $85 million, we were told later, but when you factor in the $4 million maintenance building at the new Condron Family baseball park, which was part of the Heavener complex and is used for other purposes, it’s an $89 million tab.

Let’s stop right there and draw a breath. We don’t come here to write and talk about bricks and mortar, a virtual legion of support staff, the care and feeding of athletes, fund-raisers for fat cats and everything that happens off and around the field or arena. We’re here for the games, athletes, spectatorship and fun. Oh yeah, and the winning. So I guess we’re really here for all of it.

That same smell of money is a familiar aroma these days in Tuscaloosa, Athens, College Station, Austin, Norman, Columbus and all those other familiar college football datelines. Everybody’s school color these days is green. As over-the-top as it may sound and look, the James W. Heavener Football Training Center just keeps Florida up to speed and in the game.

Full confession: I am just as confused and concerned as you are about the future of college sports and what all this means. I just didn’t expect to be as impressed with the Heavener. Perhaps, selfishly, because I root so hard for the game I love and the remaining bit of soul it may have to be retained not to be bought and sold. The truth is that just as Olympic athletes have training centers like Colorado Springs, so must other so-called non-professional sports.

Scott Stricklin was beaming. And he had a right to be. (Chris Spears Photo)

I keep thinking about Scott Stricklin standing there in the over-sized living room foyer with colleague Chip Howard, beaming like proud parents, not just proud to be keeping up with the Joneses, or the Sabans, or the Smarts, but proud of the mission and its purpose. What was the one thing different that sets the Heavener apart from others?

It was Howard, when asked for one word to help describe what this athletic Taj Mahal represented, said: “Commitment.” Not as in the commitment of recruits, but the commitment by the university to its athletes.

Never mind the state-of-the-art technology, cushy $15,000 lockers and lounge chairs, pool table, pool, cryogenics room, barber shop, basketball court – etc., etc., etc.

Every single Gator athlete, including walk-ons (over 500), will be allowed to partake of the food and nutrition program, three meals a day, five days a week. And not just football – so it’s already much more than a football facility.

The long play is remarkable. Its legacy is powerful. This is a masterpiece.

About the only thing it doesn’t offer is paying off student loans!

The great Carlos Alvarez once said of Florida football heritage that it’s right there in the stadium, where “everybody put in a brick.”

It is a masterpiece. (Chris Spears Photo)

Except now, if Ben Hill Griffin/Steve Spurrier Field is the Colosseum in Rome, then the Heavener is perhaps the architectural equivalent of Greece’s Parthenon. The spectacular slabs of marble, tile and glass are festooned with the iconic symbols like the “Work ‘Em Silly” slogan, “The Is Gator Country” and giant TV screens featuring famous video scenarios. And the sheer functionality of the design offers time-saving efficiency for a pressurized pell-mell schedule that is already beyond taxing for coaches and players.

To say a buzz has been created this month about future of The Billy Napier Era would be an understatement. Adding in the late procurement of four 4-star recruits that vaulted Florida into all the Top Ten recruiting classes for 2023 and what became a veritable Gator bonanza stirred some Orange & Blue spirits.

“Someday,” I said to Stricklin, “I’d like to sit down with you for ten minutes and recount what just happened.” As I have stated, there has never been such a momentous paradigm shift of a football program that has yet to even have its first snap.

As for the good news about early commitments – whatever that may be – Stricklin took no credit and claims no knowledge of it being staged to coincide with the unveiling of the Heavener Masterpiece.

Also, last week over 100 former well-known Gator athletes came to campus and took the Heavener tour.

“They were walking around with their I-phones taking photos and videos, smiling and gawking like a bunch of recruits,” said Stricklin, himself overjoyed to see their reaction.

It’s been a minute since the word “joy” was associated with Gator football. Take it and run. The harsh reality of the months ahead may not seem quite so penal. Sometimes you just have to settle for the smell of the coffee before you taste it. Or, in this case, the smell of money, and cautious optimism. That aroma of hope can go a long way toward establishing a new reality.

A few familiar old sights around the sparkling new facility. (Chris Spears Photo)